PATHFINDER & MASTER GUIDE CAMPOREE 2007
OPENING CEREMONY SPEECH
By Pastor Jose H. Cortes Jr., Adventist Youth Ministries Director
Since the foundation of the World, God has shown love and admiration for young people. Abel, Joseph, Moses, Ruth, Daniel, Esther, Mary, John, the Baptist, Jesus, John Mark, and Timothy can be counted among many talented and remarkable young people found in the Bible.
A great number of the pioneers of our Seventh-dayAdventistChurch were young, among them: Ellen G. Harmon, James White, John Nevins Andrews, Amy Smith, and Uriah Smith. These young people were so busy working for this church, that they waited till 1879 to form the first youth organization in a local church, in Hazelton, Michigan, under the leadership of two young people: Harry Fenner (16) and Luther Warren (14).
Forty-Seven Years after the formation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in the year 1907, the Church officially recognized the need for youth ministries by naming the Youth Department. The official name was the Young People’s Department of Missionary Volunteers.
Tonight, 100 years have past since the youth and young adults of our church were first recognized with the formation of a department for youth ministries. Young people, under the age of 30, account for 70 percent of the whole world-wide Seventh-dayAdventistChurch.
Even though young people began this church, for years we have been made to believe that we are the future of this church and that one day it will be our church, for us to lead. For now, some have accepted that it is our parents’ church, our uncles and aunts’ church, our grandparents’ church. Greater New York Pathfinders and Master Guides, I am here to declare that this church, the Seventh-dayAdventistChurch is your church; it was your church when it first began, and it is your church today. We are not the Future of the church only; WE ARE the Present of the church, this is your church. This is why I would like you to repeat after me, this is my church.
This is the reason why the Greater New York Conference Adventist Youth Ministries Department has entitled this year “IT’S GOTTA BE DONE…USE YOUR GIFTS.” And as we repeat our theme for the year we want to declare the Greater New York Conference Pathfinder and Master Guide 2007 Camporee officially opened.
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